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The clepsydra is supposedly an invention of the ancient Greeks, the  
development of which might be related to the siphon.  The underlying  
physics are the same.  The phenomenon is repeatedly re-discovered by  
kids anywhere playing with a soda straws.

I looked up "clepsydra" on wikipedia and Ha! there's little more than  
a quotation from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which is where I learned about  
it, several decades ago.  You'll have to take it from there.

--Jason

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On Jan 11, 2010, at 12:22 PM, Natasha Aristov wrote:

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> institutions.
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>
> Hello everyone,
>
> Does anyone know the theories about how siphoning was discovered?   
> What were the first hoses?  It seems to me that intestines wouldn't  
> work for siphoning,  but I'm a vegetarian chemist and have never  
> actually had an intestine in my hand, well I guess I have, back in  
> my meat-eating days, but the things they put sausages in don't seem  
> stable enough for a siphon.  Were reeds really the first hoses/pipes?
>
> And a related question:  how, do people think, a pump spray  
> mechanism was invented/discovered?  I guess it's the same principle  
> as the ground water pump.  Archimedes' screw is ingenious, but  
> simple-minded in comparison, isn't it?  ( I mean one of these  
> things: http://techalive.mtu.edu/meec/module06/title.htm )
>
> Unrelated to this, but another thing I'm working on:  the shape of  
> amphorae.  I can think of a number of reasons why they were made to  
> not stand up by themselves, but I'm wondering if anyone's come  
> across real scholarly work instead of just educated guesses.
>
> Thanks very much for any enlightenment!
>
> Natasha
>
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